www.it-ebooks.info www.it-ebooks.info JavaMail API Elliotte Rusty Harold www.it-ebooks.info JavaMail API by Elliotte Rusty Harold Copyright © 2013 Elliotte Rusty Harold All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Published by O’Reilly Media, Inc., 1005 Gravenstein Highway North, Sebastopol, CA 95472 O’Reilly books may be purchased for educational, business, or sales promotional use Online editions are also available for most titles (http://my.safaribooksonline.com) For more information, contact our corporate/ institutional sales department: 800-998-9938 or corporate@oreilly.com Editor: Meghan Blanchette Production Editor: Melanie Yarbrough Proofreader: Nicole Shelby July 2013: Cover Designer: Randy Comer Interior Designer: David Futato Illustrator: Rebecca Demarest First Edition Revision History for the First Edition: 2013-07-22: First release See http://oreilly.com/catalog/errata.csp?isbn=9781449367244 for release details Nutshell Handbook, the Nutshell Handbook logo, and the O’Reilly logo are registered trademarks of O’Reilly Media, Inc Java Mail API, the cover image of a little pied cormorant, and related trade dress are trademarks of O’Reilly Media, Inc Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed as trademarks Where those designations appear in this book, and O’Reilly Media, Inc., was aware of a trade‐ mark claim, the designations have been printed in caps or initial caps While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher and author assume no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein ISBN: 978-1-449-36724-4 [LSI] www.it-ebooks.info Table of Contents Preface v Introducing the JavaMail API Sending Email Sending Email from an Application 10 Receiving Mail 15 Password Authentication 21 Addresses 25 The Address Class The InternetAddress Class The NewsAddress Class 25 26 28 The URLName Class 31 The Constructors Parsing Methods 31 32 Messages and Parts 35 Creating Messages Replying to Messages Getting Messages from Folders Basic Header Info The From Address The Reply-to Address The Recipient Addresses The Subject of the Message 36 36 36 37 37 38 38 39 iii www.it-ebooks.info The Date of the Message Flags Folders Searching The Part Interface Attributes Headers Content Multipart Messages and File Attachments MIME Messages 39 42 46 46 46 47 51 55 57 61 Folders 67 Opening Folders Basic Folder Info Managing Folders Managing Messages in Folders Subscriptions Listing the Contents of a Folder Checking for Mail Getting Messages from Folders Searching Folders Flags 68 69 70 70 71 71 72 73 74 78 Event Handling 79 Epilogue: Email Past and Future 83 iv | Table of Contents www.it-ebooks.info Preface Email was the Internet’s first killer app One of the most frequently asked questions about Java is how to send email from a Java applet or application While it’s certainly possible to write a Java program that uses sockets to communicate with mail servers, this requires detailed knowledge of some fairly complicated protocols, such as SMTP, POP, and IMAP Just as the URL class makes interacting with HTTP servers a lot simpler than it would be with raw sockets, so too can a class library dedicated to handling email make writing email clients a lot simpler The JavaMail API is a standard extension to Java that provides a class library for email clients It’s a required component of the Java Platform, Enterprise Edition The JavaMail API can be implemented in pure Java using sockets and streams, and indeed Oracle’s reference implementation is so implemented Programs use the JavaMail API to com‐ municate with SMTP, POP, and IMAP servers to send and receive email By taking advantage of this API, you can avoid focusing on the low-level protocol details and focus instead on what you want to say with the message Custom providers can support the proprietary features of mail systems such as Gmail and Microsoft Exchange You can even install providers that add support for NNTP, the protocol used to transport Usenet news There’s no limit to the uses Java programs have for the JavaMail API Most obviously, you can write standard email clients such as Thunderbird Or it can be used for emailintensive applications such as mailing list managers, like listproc But the JavaMail API is also useful as a part of larger applications that simply need to send or receive a little email For instance, a server-monitoring application can periodically load pages from a web server running on a different host and email the webmaster if the web server has crashed An applet can use email to send data to any process or person on the Internet that has an email address, in essence using the web server’s SMTP server as a simple proxy to bypass the usual security restrictions about whom an applet is allowed to talk to In reverse, an applet can talk to an IMAP server on the applet host to receive data from many hosts around the Net A newsreader could be implemented as a custom v www.it-ebooks.info service provider that treats NNTP as just one more means of exchanging messages And that’s just the beginning of the sort of programs the JavaMail API makes it very straight‐ forward to write Who You Are This book assumes you are comfortable with the Java language and programming en‐ vironment, in addition to object-oriented programming in general This book does not attempt to be a basic language tutorial You should be thoroughly familiar with the syntax of Java You should have written at least simple applications Java Versions This book is written with the assumption that you are coding with at least Java 5.0 In general, I use Java features like generics and the enhanced for loop freely without further explanation With respect to the JavaMail API, the distinction between Java and Java is not large Most examples look identical in the two versions Java is a bit more of a stretch I have not shied away from using features introduced in Java where they seemed especially useful or convenient—for instance, try-withresources and multicatch are both very helpful when fitting examples into the limited space available in a printed book—but I have been careful to point out my use of such features As to JavaMail itself, this book covers JavaMail 1.5 which requires Java or later If for some reason you’re stuck on Java 1.4, JavaMail 1.4.1 is still available and will work with your JDK Whichever version you use, the JavaMail API is not bundled with the base JDK or JRE, even in Java You can download it separately from https://java.net/projects/ javamail/ Conventions Used in This Book Body text is Times Roman, normal, like you’re reading now A monospaced typewriter font is used for: • Code examples and fragments • Anything that might appear in a Java program, including keywords, operators, data types, method names, variable names, class names, and interface names • Program output • Tags that might appear in an HTML document A bold monospaced font is used for: vi | Preface www.it-ebooks.info • Command lines and options that should be typed verbatim on the screen An italicized font is used for: • New terms where they are defined • Pathnames, filenames, and program names (however, if the program name is also the name of a Java class, it is given in a monospaced font, like other class names) • Host and domain names (java.oreilly.com) • URLs (http://www.cafeaulait.org/slides/) • Titles of other chapters and books (JavaI/O) Significant code fragments and complete programs are generally placed into a separate paragraph, like this: Message msg = new MimeMessage(session); Address elliotte = new InternetAddress("elharo@ibiblio.org"); msg.setFrom(elliotte); When code is presented as fragments rather than complete programs, the existence of the appropriate import statements should be inferred For example, in the above code fragment you may assume that javax.mail.Address and javax.mail.Message were imported Indicates a tip, suggestion, or general note Indicates a warning or caution Request for Comments I enjoy hearing from readers, whether with general comments about this book, specific corrections, other topics you would like to see covered, or just war stories about your own network programming travails You can reach me by sending email to elharo@ibi blio.org Please realize, however, that I receive several hundred pieces of email a day and cannot personally respond to each one For the best chances of getting a personal re‐ sponse, please identify yourself as a reader of this book If you have a question about a particular program that isn’t working as you expect, try to reduce it to the simplest case that reproduces the bug, preferably a single class, and paste the text of the entire program into the body of your email Unsolicited attachments will be deleted unopened And Preface www.it-ebooks.info | vii please, please send the message from the account you want me to reply to and make sure that your Reply-to address is properly set! There’s nothing quite so frustrating as spending an hour or more carefully researching the answer to an interesting question and composing a detailed response, only to have it bounce because my correspondent was sending from a public terminal and neglected to set the browser preferences to include their actual email address I also adhere to the old saying “If you like this book, tell your friends If you don’t like it, tell me.” I’m especially interested in hearing about mistakes This is my eighth book I’ve yet to publish a perfect one, but I keep trying As hard as I and the editors at O’Reilly worked on this book, I’m sure there are mistakes and typographical errors that we missed here somewhere And I’m sure that at least one of them is a really embarrassing whopper of a problem If you find a mistake or a typo, please let me know so I can correct it I’ll post it on the O’Reilly website Before reporting errors, please check one of those pages to see if I already know about it and have posted a fix Any errors that are reported will be fixed in future printings Using Code Examples This book is here to help you get your job done In general, if this book includes code examples, you may use the code in this book in your programs and documentation You not need to contact us for permission unless you’re reproducing a significant portion of the code For example, writing a program that uses several chunks of code from this book does not require permission Selling or distributing a CD-ROM of examples from O’Reilly books does require permission Answering a question by citing this book and quoting example code does not require permission Incorporating a significant amount of example code from this book into your product’s documentation does require per‐ mission We appreciate, but not require, attribution An attribution usually includes the title, author, publisher, and ISBN For example: “JavaMail API by Elliotte Rusty Harold (O’Reilly) Copyright 2013 Elliotte Rusty Harold, 978-1-449-36724-4.” If you feel your use of code examples falls outside fair use or the permission given above, feel free to contact us at permissions@oreilly.com Safari® Books Online Safari Books Online is an on-demand digital library that delivers expert content in both book and video form from the world’s lead‐ ing authors in technology and business viii | Preface www.it-ebooks.info As the name implies, the messages in the array are placed at the end of this folder The copyMessages() method copies messages from this folder into a specified folder given as an argument: public void copyMessages(Message[] messages, Folder destination) throws IllegalStateException, FolderNotFoundException, MessagingException The copied messages are appended to the destination folder They are not removed from the source folder To move a message, you have to copy it from the source to the desti‐ nation, delete it from the source folder, and finally expunge the source folder To delete a message from a folder, set its Flags.Flag.DELETED flag to true To physically remove deleted messages from a folder, you have to call its expunge() method: public abstract Message[] expunge() throws MessagingException, IllegalStateException, FolderNotFoundException After a message has been expunged, there may still be Message objects that refer to it In this case, almost any method call on such an object, except isExpunged() and get MessageNumber(), will throw an exception Subscriptions Some implementations allow you to subscribe to particular folders This would be most appropriate for an NNTP provider, where a typical server offers thousands of news‐ groups, but the typical user will want to retrieve messages from a few dozen of these, at most Each newsgroup would be represented as a Folder object A subscription to the newsgroup’s Folder indicates that the user wants to retrieve messages from that news‐ group: public boolean isSubscribed() public void setSubscribed(boolean subscribe) throws FolderNotFoundException, MethodNotSupportedException, MessagingException Subscriptions are sometimes also used in IMAP to specify a subset of a user’s folders that need to be cached locally or prefetched If a provider doesn’t support subscription, setSubscribed() throws a MethodNotSup portedException and isSubscribed() returns false Listing the Contents of a Folder There are four methods to list the folders that a folder contains: public Folder[] list() throws FolderNotFoundException, MessagingException public Folder[] listSubscribed() Subscriptions www.it-ebooks.info | 71 throws FolderNotFoundException, MessagingException public abstract Folder[] list(String pattern) throws FolderNotFoundException, MessagingException public Folder[] listSubscribed(String pattern) throws FolderNotFoundException, MessagingException The first method returns an array listing the folders that this folder contains The second method returns an array listing all the subscribed folders that this folder contains The third and fourth methods repeat these first two, except they allow you to specify a pattern Only folders whose full names match the pattern will be in the returned array The pattern is a string giving the name of the folders that match However, the string can contain the % character, which is a wildcard that matches any sequence of characters not including the hierarchy separator, and *, which matches any sequence of characters including the hierarchy separator Checking for Mail The getMessageCount() method returns the number of messages in this folder: public abstract int getMessageCount() throws FolderNotFoundException, MessagingException This method can be invoked on an open or closed folder However, in the case of a closed folder, this method may (or may not) return -1 to indicate that the exact number of messages isn’t easily available The hasNewMessages() method returns true if new messages have been added to the folder since it was last opened (not since the last time you checked!): public abstract boolean hasNewMessages() throws FolderNotFoundException, MessagingException The getNewMessageCount() method uses a slightly different approach for determining how many new messages there are It checks the number of messages in the folder whose RECENT flag is set: public int getNewMessageCount() throws FolderNotFoundException, MessagingException Unlike hasNewMessages(), getNewMessageCount() can be invoked on either an open or a closed folder However, in the case of a closed folder, getNewMessageCount() may return -1 to indicate that the real answer would be too expensive to obtain The getUnreadMessageCount() method is similar but returns the number of messages in the folder that not have a SEEN flag set: public int getUnreadMessageCount() throws FolderNotFoundException, MessagingException 72 | Chapter 8: Folders www.it-ebooks.info Like getNewMessageCount(), getUnreadMessageCount() can be invoked on either an open or a closed folder However, in the case of a closed folder, it may return -1 to indicate that the real answer would be too expensive to obtain Getting Messages from Folders The Folder class provides four methods for retrieving messages from open folders: public abstract Message getMessage(int messageNumber) throws IndexOutOfBoundsException, FolderNotFoundException, IllegalStateException, MessagingException public Message[] getMessages() throws FolderNotFoundException, IllegalStateException, MessagingException public Message[] getMessages(int start, int end) throws IndexOutOfBoundsException, FolderNotFoundException, IllegalStateException, MessagingException public Message[] getMessages(int[] messageNumbers) throws IndexOutOfBoundsException, FolderNotFoundException, IllegalStateException, MessagingException The getMessage() method returns the nth message in the folder The first message in the folder is number (not 0) Message numbers may change when messages are ex‐ punged from the folder An IndexOutOfBoundsException is thrown if you ask for mes‐ sage n and there are n - or fewer messages in the folder The first getMessages() method returns an array of Message objects representing all the messages in this folder The second getMessages() method returns an array of Message objects from the folder, beginning with start and finishing with end, inclusive The third getMessages() method returns an array containing only those messages specifically identified by number in the messageNumbers array All four of these methods only create the Message objects and fill in the minimal number of fields in those objects The actual text and other content of the message is fetched from the server when the Message’s methods that use those things are invoked This means, for example, that you can’t get all the messages from the server, then get on an airplane and work with them offline There is, however, a fetch() method, which fills in certain parts of the Message objects with actual data from the server: public void fetch(Message[] messages, FetchProfile fp) throws IllegalStateException, MessagingException The messages argument is an array containing the Message objects to be prefetched The FetchProfile argument specifies which headers in the messages to prefetch How‐ ever, this is still just a suggestion Implementations are free to ignore this request and fetch the message content only when it’s actually needed You can request prefetching of individual headers such as Subject: by name You can also request prefetching of three predefined blocks of information: the envelope Getting Messages from Folders www.it-ebooks.info | 73 (essentially the subject and addressees of the message), the flags of the message, or the content info of the messages The three groups you can ask for are given as constant FetchProfile.Item objects They are FetchProfile.Item.ENVELOPE, FetchPro file.Item.FLAGS, and FetchProfile.Item.CONTENT_INFO The FetchProfile class has a simple noargs constructor as well as methods for con‐ structing a new profile, adding particular items and headers to the profile, and testing whether a particular item is part of a particular profile: public public public public public public public FetchProfile() void add(FetchProfile.Item item) void add(String headerName) boolean contains(FetchProfile.Item item) boolean contains(String headerName) FetchProfile.Item[] getItems() String[] getHeaderNames() For example, suppose you wanted to download just the subjects, the To: addresses, and the content information of a block of messages Fetch them like this: Message[] messages = folder.getMessages(); FetchProfile fp = new FetchProfile(); fp.add(FetchProfile.Item.CONTENT_INFO); fp.add("Subject"); fp.add("To"); folder.fetch(messages, fp); Searching Folders If the server supports searching (as many IMAP servers and most POP servers don’t), it’s easy to search a folder for the messages meeting certain criteria The criteria are encoded in SearchTerm objects: public abstract class SearchTerm extends Object The SearchTerm class is abstract, but the JavaMail API provides many subclasses for performing common searches: public public public public public public public public public public public public 74 | abstract abstract abstract final final final final final final final final abstract class class class class class class class class class class class class AddressTerm FlagTerm StringTerm FromTerm FromStringTerm RecipientTerm AddressStringTerm BodyTerm HeaderTerm MessageIDTerm SubjectTerm DateTerm extends extends extends extends extends extends extends extends extends extends extends extends Chapter 8: Folders www.it-ebooks.info SearchTerm SearchTerm SearchTerm AddressTerm AddressStringTerm AddressTerm StringTerm StringTerm StringTerm StringTerm StringTerm ComparisonTerm public final public final class class ReceivedDateTerm SentDateTerm extends DateTerm extends DateTerm It also provides several classes for combining searches: public public public public final abstract final final class class class class AndTerm ComparisonTerm NotTerm OrTerm extends extends extends extends SearchTerm SearchTerm SearchTerm SearchTerm Set up a SearchTerm matching your desired parameters and pass it to one of these two search() methods in the Folder class: public Message[] search(SearchTerm term) throws SearchException, FolderNotFoundException, IllegalStateException, MessagingException public Message[] search(SearchTerm term, Message[] messages) throws SearchException, FolderNotFoundException, IllegalStateException, MessagingException A SearchException indicates that the search term is more complicated than the im‐ plementation can handle For example, this search term seeks out all messages from billg@microsoft.com: Address billg = new InternetAddress("billg@microsoft.com"); SearchTerm term = new FromTerm(billg); This search term looks for all messages from billg@microsoft.com in 2012 or later: Address billg = new InternetAddress("billg@microsoft.com"); SearchTerm term1 = new FromTerm(billg); Calendar calendar = Calendar.getInstance(); calendar.set(2012, 0, 1); Date date = calendar.getTime(); SearchTerm term2 = new SentDateTerm(ComparisonTerm.GE, date); SearchTerm term = new AndTerm(term1, term2); Example 8-1 is a simple variation of the MailClient program in Example 6-1 It allows the user to list email addresses on the command line after the initial URL, like this: % java SearchClient imap://elharo@mail.ibiblio.org/INBOX willis@nvx.com billg@microsoft.com Only messages from the specified users will be returned However, if no email addresses are given, all messages will be returned Example 8-1 A mail client that searches by From: address import import import import import javax.mail.*; javax.mail.search.*; javax.mail.internet.*; java.util.*; java.io.*; public class SearchClient { Searching Folders www.it-ebooks.info | 75 public static void main(String[] args) { if (args.length == 0) { System.err.println( "Usage: java SearchClient protocol://username@host/foldername"); return; } URLName server = new URLName(args[0]); Folder folder = null; try { Session session = Session.getInstance(new Properties(), new MailAuthenticator(server.getUsername())); // Connect to the server and open the folder folder = session.getFolder(server); if (folder == null) { System.out.println("Folder " + server.getFile() + " not found."); System.exit(1); } folder.open(Folder.READ_ONLY); SearchTerm term = null; if (args.length > 1) { SearchTerm[] terms = new SearchTerm[args.length-1]; for (int i = 1; i < args.length; i++) { terms[i-1] = new FromTerm(new InternetAddress(args[i])); } if (terms.length > 1) term = new OrTerm(terms); else term = terms[0]; } // Get the messages from the server Message[] messages; if (term == null) { messages = folder.getMessages(); } else { messages = folder.search(term); } for (int i = 0; i < messages.length; i++) { System.out.println(" Message " + (i+1) + " "); // Print message headers @SuppressWarnings("unchecked") Enumeration headers = messages[i].getAllHeaders(); while (headers.hasMoreElements()) { Header h = headers.nextElement(); System.out.println(h.getName() + ": " + h.getValue()); } System.out.println(); 76 | Chapter 8: Folders www.it-ebooks.info // Enumerate parts Object body = messages[i].getContent(); if (body instanceof Multipart) { processMultipart((Multipart) body); } else { // ordinary message processPart(messages[i]); } System.out.println(); } } catch (MessagingException | IOException ex) { ex.printStackTrace(); } finally { // Close the connection // but don't remove the messages from the server if (folder != null && folder.isOpen()) try { folder.close(false); } catch (MessagingException e) { // ignore; } } // Since we may have brought up a GUI to authenticate, // we can't rely on returning from main() to exit System.exit(0); } public static void processMultipart(Multipart mp) throws MessagingException { for (int i = 0; i < mp.getCount(); i++) { processPart(mp.getBodyPart(i)); } } public static void processPart(Part p) { try { // I'd prefer to test the Content-Disposition header here // However, too many common email clients don't use it String fileName = p.getFileName(); if (fileName == null) { // likely inline p.writeTo(System.out); } else if (fileName != null) { File f = new File(fileName); // find a version that does not yet exist for (int i = 1; f.exists(); i++) { String newName = fileName + " " + i; f = new File(newName); } try (FileOutputStream out = new FileOutputStream(f); InputStream in = new BufferedInputStream(p.getInputStream())) { Searching Folders www.it-ebooks.info | 77 // We can't just use p.writeTo() here because it doesn't // decode the attachment Instead we copy the input stream // onto the output stream which does automatically decode // Base-64, quoted printable, and a variety of other formats int b; while ((b = in.read()) != -1) out.write(b); out.flush(); } } } } } catch (MessagingException | IOException ex) { ex.printStackTrace(); } Flags It’s sometimes useful to change the flags for an entire group of messages at once The Folder class has three methods for doing this: public void setFlags(Message[] messages, Flags flag, boolean value) throws IllegalStateException, MessagingException public void setFlags(int start, int end, Flags flag, boolean value) throws IllegalStateException, MessagingException public void setFlags(int[] messageNumbers, Flags flag, boolean value) throws IndexOutOfBoundsException, IllegalStateException, MessagingException Ultimately, these are just conveniences There’s nothing you can with these methods that you can’t by setting the flags on each message individually with the set Flags() method of the Message class In fact, the default implementation simply invokes that method on each message in the specified block of messages The Folder class also has a getPermanentFlags() method to return the flags that this folder supports for all messages This includes all the flags except the user-defined flags, which are applied only to particular messages that the user has flagged For instance, not all folder implementations track whether messages have been answered: public abstract Flags getPermanentFlags() 78 | Chapter 8: Folders www.it-ebooks.info CHAPTER Event Handling Many email programs can periodically check for incoming email in the background One way to structure an email program is as a series of responses to unpredictable events This is much like programming for a graphical user interface, and indeed the JavaMail API uses the same Observer pattern to handle mail events that JavaBeans and Swing use to handle GUI events The JavaMail API defines six different kinds of mail events, all in the javax.mail.event package They are all subclasses of MailEvent: public abstract class MailEvent extends EventObject The six concrete kinds of mail events are: ConnectionEvent A Folder, Store, or Transport has been opened, closed, or disconnected FolderEvent A Folder has been created, deleted, or renamed MessageChangedEvent The message’s envelope or flags have changed MessageCountEvent A message was added to or deleted from a Folder StoreEvent A notification or alert from a Store TransportEvent A notification from a Transport that a message was delivered, partially delivered, or failed to be delivered There are six listener interfaces corresponding to the six kinds of events: 79 www.it-ebooks.info public public public public public public interface interface interface interface interface interface ConnectionListener FolderListener MessageChangedListener MessageCountListener StoreListener TransportListener extends extends extends extends extends extends EventListener EventListener EventListener EventListener EventListener EventListener Each of these interfaces declares one or more methods that must be provided by im‐ plementing classes For example, the ConnectionListener class declares these three methods: public void opened(ConnectionEvent event) public void disconnected(ConnectionEvent event) public void closed(ConnectionEvent event) The FolderListener interface declares these three methods: public void folderCreated(FolderEvent event) public void folderDeleted(FolderEvent event) public void folderRenamed(FolderEvent event) Four of these events can be fired by folders Consequently, there are addXXXListen er() and removeXXXListener() methods in the Folder class: public public public public public public public public void void void void void void void void addConnectionListener(ConnectionListener listener) removeConnectionListener(ConnectionListener listener) addFolderListener(FolderListener listener) removeFolderListener(FolderListener listener) addMessageCountListener(MessageCountListener listener) removeMessageCountListener(MessageCountListener listener) addMessageChangedListener(MessageChangedListener listener) removeMessageChangedListener(MessageChangedListener listener) The addXXXListener() methods add an implementation of the particular interface to the list of listeners The removeXXXListener() methods remove an implementation from that list All of this works exactly as it does in JavaBeans and Swing, just with different events For example, suppose you want to be notified every time a new email message arrives First you implement the MessageCountListener interface with a class that responds to message added events as shown in Example 9-1 Example 9-1 Message Notifier import javax.mail.*; import javax.mail.event.*; public class MessageArrival implements MessageCountListener { @Override public void messagesAdded(MessageCountEvent event) { Message[] newMessages = event.getMessages(); for (Message message : newMessages) { 80 | Chapter 9: Event Handling www.it-ebooks.info try { System.out.println(message.getSubject()); } catch (MessagingException e) { System.out.println("New message arrived!"); } } } @Override public void messagesRemoved(MessageCountEvent event) { // ignore } } This class notifies the user by printing a message on the console Of course, you could pop up an alert in a GUI, ring a bell, or use any other technique you like Next you install this listener on the folder you wish to monitor as shown in Example 9-2 Example 9-2 Mailbox Monitor import java.util.*; import javax.mail.*; import javax.mail.event.*; import com.sun.mail.imap.IMAPStore; public class GMailMonitor { public static void main(String[] args) throws InterruptedException { String username = args[0]; String password = args[1]; try { Session session = Session.getInstance(new Properties()); final IMAPStore store = (IMAPStore) session.getStore("imaps"); store.connect("imap.gmail.com", username + "@gmail.com", password); final Folder inbox = store.getFolder("INBOX"); if (inbox == null) { System.out.println("No INBOX"); System.exit(1); } inbox.open(Folder.READ_ONLY); MessageCountListener countListener = new MessageArrival(); inbox.addMessageCountListener(countListener); Runnable r = new Runnable() { @Override public void run() { while (true) { try { System.out.println(inbox.getMessageCount()); Event Handling www.it-ebooks.info | 81 System.out.println("Idling"); store.idle(); } catch (MessagingException ex) { ex.printStackTrace(); return; } } } } } }; Thread t = new Thread(r); t.start(); } catch (MessagingException ex) { ex.printStackTrace(); } Note that in this case it’s not enough to simply install a listener The server won’t push information to the client The client has to contact the server To make this happen, Example 9-2 spawns a separate thread that periodically sends idle() commands to the IMAP server The server can respond to one of these when it has something to say Otherwise the connection is just held open indefinitely Now every time a message arrives in the INBOX, its subject will be logged to System.out 82 | Chapter 9: Event Handling www.it-ebooks.info Epilogue: Email Past and Future I’m dating myself here, but I remember a time when AOL was obviously going to replace email (or at least that’s what the pundits and day traders told us) Standard Internet email was clearly too anarchic, uncontrolled, and uncommercial to be suitable for real business Now that email was escaping the ivory towers of academia, it had to be owned and managed by a corporation That…didn’t happen A few years later, MySpace was obviously going to replace email Email was only used by old fogies like myself Anyone under 18 didn’t send or read email; and as they grew up, graduated from college, and joined the work force, email was going to fade away much like Usenet news before it That also…didn’t happen MySpace sold itself to Rupert Murdoch and promptly imploded The teenagers who made MySpace the new hotness rapidly defected to upstart Facebook And for a few years the same talking heads who had told us AOL and MySpace were going to replace email were now saying that Facebook was going to replace email Email had become choked with spam and thus useless Clearly Facebook was the wave of the future By this point the articles and blog posts were beginning to sound a little familiar, as if someone had just done s/MySpace/Facebook and rerun the same pieces In any case, once again that…didn’t happen That’s only a brief selection of “email killers” that have been sold to us over the last decade and a half MSN, Twitter, text messages, YouTube, Skype, and more have all been her‐ alded as email replacements I’d lay good money that email will outlast all of them By this point it should be obvious that email is here to stay While SMTP, POP, IMAP, DNS, MX records, and even TCP itself are imperfect, they hit a real sweet spot They are more than good enough to solve the fundamental problem of enabling people to communicate asynchronously with written messages without being locked into any one network or provider The protocols have evolved over time Security has become vastly more important More connections are encrypted than ever before (and even more should be) Authentication and authorization are enforced at most ingress points to the network which alleviates 83 www.it-ebooks.info some of the more casual spamming and forgery problems Unicode has mostly replaced ASCII and other national character sets Attachments, MIME, and multipart messages were added before some of the people reading this book were born More changes are likely in the future Nonetheless, the basic architecture of email communication has remained remarkably consistent for more than 30 years and seems likely to continue for at least another 30 People need email, and they need to send it to other people who don’t use the same ISP or service they No single service, no single website, can hope to replace it As important as HTTP has become, it is not the only protocol needed on today’s or tomorrow’s Internet SMTP is just as important and POP and IMAP only slightly less so Programs that push information to people instead of waiting for people to request it need email Such programs written in Java need the JavaMail API 84 | Epilogue: Email Past and Future www.it-ebooks.info About the Author Elliotte Rusty Harold is originally from New Orleans, to which he returns periodically in search of a decent bowl of gumbo However, he currently resides in the Prospect Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn with his wife and dog Thor He’s a frequent speaker at industry conferences, including Software Development, Dr Dobb’s Architecure & Design World, SD Best Practices, Extreme Markup Languages, and too many user groups to count His open source projects include the XOM Library for processing XML with Java and the Amateur media player Colophon The animal on the cover of JavaMail API is a little pied cormorant The cover image’s origin is unknown The cover font is Adobe ITC Garamond The text font is Adobe Minion Pro; the heading font is Adobe Myriad Condensed; and the code font is Dalton Maag’s Ubuntu Mono www.it-ebooks.info ... handle this, the JavaMail API uses the JavaBeans Activation Framework (JAF) to describe and display this content This book covers Version 1.5 of the JavaMail API The JavaMail API is a standard... abstract JavaMail API is to shield you from low-level details like this You don’t write code to access an IMAP server or a POP server; you write code that speaks to the JavaMail API Then the JavaMail. .. elharo@ibiblio.org June 19, 2013 x | Preface www.it-ebooks.info CHAPTER Introducing the JavaMail API The JavaMail API is a fairly high-level representation of the basic components of any email system